Exhausted in the Best Way

My granddaughter is exhausting. But I’m not complaining. When I am with her, I am all in. When she is hungry, I feed her, when she wants to climb up the stairs, I follow behind her ready to catch her if she falls.

When she wants to open and close and open and close and open and close the cupboard doors, I sit patiently on the stool until something else catches her eye.

The cat walks in, unaware that there is a strange and scary little being who is about to squeal with delight at her presence. She follows the frightened kitty into the bedroom, and I am right there with her. “The kitty isn’t sure about you, bug,” I tell her. She smiles, more determined than ever.

She is always in the present moment, and when I am with her so am I. This might be the only time I am.
My granddaughter is exhausting, that is why I do what everyone tells new mothers to do, (although they never do it because they have a to-do list, another child, a meal to prepare, clothes to wash) My list sits politely somewhere in the back of my mind. I sleep when the baby sleeps. Well, I don’t sleep, that would be out of the question. I have to be alert; in case she wakes up. I can’t let go in that way; I can’t let my guard down. What if she wakes up and I don’t?

So, no I don’t sleep, I rest. I rest with her sleeping on my chest. Sometimes for hours. and every so often, or more like every few minutes, I smell the top of her head or kiss it gently.

I listen to her breathe and watch whatever show I am currently binging, with the volume very low. It doesn’t matter if I miss some of the action.

Sometimes she wakes up and lifts her head and looks at me and smiles and lays her rosy cheek on my chest again and falls back into a peaceful sleep. Sometimes she wakes up crying and tosses her head and body around and lays her head down with a bit of a thump and fusses for a while.

I sing her favorite song. I’ve always been embarrassed to sing in front of anyone, but I sing and my voice, my not-so-great voice, soothes her back to sleep.

I hope I was this way with my own babies, but I’m not sure I was. The truth is I don’t remember. I remember feeling worried all the time. Worried that I was doing something, maybe everything wrong.
Now, with her, I know that I am doing everything right.

When she wakes up there is no more rest, there is diaper changing and lunch and following her carefully as she climbs up the stairs again and gets too close to the kitty litter and has to be distracted.

And I carry her back down the stairs very carefully, I am too old to do this, and she too heavy for me to carry. But here I am carrying her down the stairs. I can’t lift her car seat with her in it, but somehow, I get her in the car. I can’t push the stroller up and down the hill, but she loves the bumpy road so here we go again.

At the end of the day, I am eager for her dad to come and take her. But then when he does of course it’s bittersweet. And I am exhausted in the best way.

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